Authors Note: Okay…First, I suppose, warnings. Smoking, Alcohol and references to drugs. Four uses of the F-word. Sorry about that. May be seen as Out-Of-Character, but I'm just interpreting what the John running through my brain would do. Sorry if you disagree.
It's dark, it's not like anything I've ever written before, and it was almost painful for me to write at times. But I'm morbidly proud of it. So, please, take the time to read and just drop me a line in a review whether you think that I should stick to my usual style or whether you like this. I doubt I'll write more in this dark way, but please just let me know what you think.
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Slow Dancing In A Burning Room
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Their goodbye is said in Sherlock's eyes never leaving his, making him feel like he's drowning, and their fingers tangling together for the briefest of seconds. Their breath intermingles, as Sherlock rests his forehead against John's and murmurs a goodbye that bursts with a thousand meanings and pulls on their unnameable bond with painful fingers.
"Come back," John tells him, determination breaking to show the cracked and fractured man standing beneath. Because the prospect of staying behind and letting Sherlock hunt down Moriarty alone fucking hurts.
John can see the lie in Sherlock's eyes when he promises he'll be back, can hear the waver the man's voice, and the eclipsing emptiness that befalls his eyes – the same odd nothingness that John remembers seeing in his face upon their first meeting, the blankness that had gradually faded during their time together – but he doesn't say a word.
Clinging to hope is easier than facing reality.
The flat seems lifeless afterwards. Nothing moves; Sherlock's experiments still lie in the bottom of glass beakers scattered across the kitchen table; The wall is still splashed with bullet holes of boredom; And the skull still stares at John every morning with empty, staring eyes. But the verve has died with Sherlock's departure.
Each morning, John awakes with staring eyes, a thumping heart, and raggle-taggle mops of inky hair stained with blood racing behind his eyelids. He presses his hands into his eyes until a swirling mosaic of colours washes away Sherlock's agonised eyes, and tries to pull himself out of bed.
It never seems worth it anymore.
But still, he drags on jumpers, jeans, and a pained smile to fool the world around him. He isn't doing a very good job at it, the smile falls flat and the eyes remain dead.
The mirror in the bathroom smashes two weeks after Sherlock's departure…and only the white healing scars on John's knuckles tell the story of how it happened - he can't look at himself anymore. Can't stand to see the difference in his face. And shattering something, smashing and breaking, brings the fire roaring back into his veins. Bring on the Seven Years Bad Luck, bring on the scars and the blood! Bring all the bad luck and karma to him, him, and no-one else!
Afterwards he grasps the edges of the sink, now splattered with drops of scarlet, and gulps in fresh bursts of air that he hasn't drank in for weeks. A yell fights for survival at the back of his throat, wrestling with his teeth and gums and ripping his lips apart as he finally breaks and screams at the porcelain.
Mrs Hudson's worried banging on the front-door revives him again, breathing the sanity back into his voice and his silence as he unlocks the door and slips past her.
He doesn't mention the blood, and neither does she. She understands. She loves him, too.
They stand like two unmoving shadows and Mycroft is curiously absent his usual umbrella. The absence of it makes John's heart race and stomach roll.
John isn't sure of the location, and he's not sure why the black car ambushed him on the way back from the shops. Sherlock's not here anymore, so why does Mycroft call for him?
"He's in France,"
The words are spoken lowly, like they're some secret John isn't meant to know. Then again, it is. John isn't meant to know a thing about this, about any of this. But Mycroft, the man for whom the British Government bends to curtsey, is allowing this. And it makes John feel pathetic. Like he's a snivelling dog who's been given a spare sandwich out of mere pity.
But at the same time, it's as though the last few weeks of drowning are gone and he can breathe, in and out, blissful air. It's oxygen running back through his veins, and air on his tongue that has taste once again. A spark shivers along his spine, as though jolting him awake once more. Because Sherlock's alive, Sherlock's fighting. And nothing can be wrong when those words are fact!
Mycroft spares him a nod, before walking into the darkness of the empty warehouse, leaving John with the company of his P.A, her BlackBerry, and the leather interior of the BMW.
The sensation of that knowledge lasts just under two hours.
Running with Sherlock had been a rush, a shot of adrenaline and a dash of excitement in life. It had been…indescribable. Exactly that; John can't describe it.
A lightening bolt down his spine, shooting into his brain and tingling his synapses. An electric shock that lingers on the tips of his fingers even hours after the spark dies. The exhilaration, the freedom, the absolute fucking terror of standing beside a man with a brain, a mouth and the eyes of the genius John lived with.
Indescribable.
The closest John can get to even putting it into words is by comparing it to a high. A high on a drug that's twice as addictive as anything John's ever heard of.
And John needs another hit.
He starts with Cigarettes.
The doctor in him rebels as he purchases the most expensive box and the cheapest lighter the off-license has, but the addict cheers at the prospect of a replacement drug.
He remembers the boys at his school, grouped around the bike-sheds, who slid their cigarettes between their fingers and inhaled as though they were their idols in the magazines. John has no time for such posturing, he needs the buzz. He clutches it at the end, fingers bunched and the burning end edging ever closer his flesh as he steals drags. Breaths long and slow, smoky clouds of clarity stuffing up the rooms of 221b, and the flickers of flames dancing on his face, John buys a snippet of adrenaline.
Because it is knowing deep down inside that each cigarette he grasps like a beacon, each plume of smoke he inhales and exhales relentlessly, is a step closer to the edge. It's knowing that the cigarette could rot him from the inside, corrode away at his lungs. Mrs Hudson tells him it's a nasty habit, tells him that she'll up the rent if he doesn't stop. But they both know that she won't do that to him, even though London prices are high and he can only pay half. So he continues to smoke, because the tobacco kills the emptiness, and the nicotine dims the meaninglessness.
But the cigarettes don't last long.
He's standing in the kitchen, cigarette trapped and hanging between his lips and hands buried in dishwater, when his eyes land upon the large red mug that Sherlock always took his tea in. The mug that John has yet to touch, even though it's drawing close in on three months. There's still freezing cold tea in the bottom half of it, abandoned all those days ago before Moriarty was even a mere thought in their ears. John's vision blurs…and it's not from the cigarette smoke in his eyes or the cylinder of burning ash that lands on his frozen hands.
And the cigarette doesn't keep the pain at bay any more.
He needs something better.
Something stronger.
He needs Sherlock, but he'll take what he can get.
He's hesitant to buy the bottle of vodka that's clutched in his hands – he's seen Harry ruin her life with the poisonous stuff. But there's not exactly much left to his life, so he buys it anyway and ignores the concerned look of the cashier. He should have gone to the self-checkout. As painful as they are to operate, the Chip and Pin only insults his wallet and not the look behind his eyes.
He's gotten tipsy before. But tipsy won't do anything. Tipsy is the equivalent of the mere buzz that smoking brings him, and if he wants that hum then he'll just pull out the rest of the cigarettes he's abandoned in his room. So he drinks, and drinks, and drinks, until the room tilts sideways, his feet unbalance and he slams his head onto the side of the table. Stars burst into life behind his eyelids and blackness envelopes him with comforting arms.
Eyes, frighteningly intense and drowningly blue, stare at him from beneath tangles of black silken hair. A voice with a cut-glass accent and that immorally seductive gravely undertone, mumbles his name, insistent and fervent.
And John smiles in his unconsciousness.
But the illusion only lasts until the first slants of morning light pushes against his eyelids. He moans, presses ginger finger-tips to the dried-blood of the cut on his forehead, and reality sets in once again as his only companion is the ticking clock and the dripping tap of the kitchen.
He doesn't buy any more vodka – it doesn't last long enough.
"How are you doing, John?" Mrs Hudson stretches a hand across the still cluttered kitchen table to rub comforting fingers across his knuckles. John allows her to do so, but withdraws his hand after just a few seconds – he doesn't like being touched much anymore.
"Fine," He lies, and the word is like sandpaper down his throat. She sees right through it and sighs, but lets it lie.
Then she tuts at him. "What a mess. You really should tidy up, young man," She scolds, and John nearly manages some semblance of a smile. The normality of it is so breath-taking that he half expects Sherlock to come storming through and tell her don't touch anything, Mrs Hudson, everything is in its proper place! John, don't drink that – it's not tea.
So he nods at her, promises to clean the flat, and listens to her as she tells her stories of the week. But he won't tidy up. The jumbled mess that is 221b Baker Street isn't changing any-time soon, Sherlock's absence has changed it enough.
Mycroft doesn't bother with dramatics this time, no BMW or abandoned warehouse. And that fucking terrifies John. Instead it's a text on his phone with a single word written across the screen;
Germany.
MH
Germany. He's still searching, still fighting…but he's still gone.
John needs…Hell, there's only one thing he needs.
Every so often, John catches sight of Sherlock.
He sees him when he's waiting in Starbucks for his order of coffee, black, no sugar (He can't bring himself to drink tea). Sees that halo of black satin curls framing alabaster skin sprint past the window. He pauses, his breath catching painfully in his throat, and watches for him to pass by the next window. His coffee cools, his eyes water, and Sherlock doesn't pass by.
Tapping his fingers repetitively on the edge of his laptop, staring almost unseeingly at the blank entry page to his blog, he thinks he sees Sherlock's distorted image in the reflective surface. He spins violently, knocking the laptop to the floor with a crackling thud, and stares for hours at the front door for that tell-tale grey coat and ocean eyes.
He thinks he sees him collecting pills from another doctor at the clinic. Dragging himself around the shops that he only goes to because Mrs Hudson asks for his company, he thinks he sees him perusing the DVD rack. He imagines that he sees him in every passing taxi.
With every false encounter, every deceitful dash of hope, sends the waves of depression rolling through his chest. And every racing thumping of his heart makes him want to throw up.
The skull almost seems to be judging him as he searches through the flat.
I'm clean!
But is your flat?
The words ring like silver bells in John's head, as though they're chiming the entrance of some coveted angel he's been waiting for for just the longest time. But he can't stand the thought of angels anymore, and idea of perfection seems tainted and empty. He wants the imperfect and fractured man whose face he can't get rid of and whose voice he just can't forget.
This guy? A junkie?
John…
It's got to be here somewhere! John needs that next hit. Because Mycroft has no more information, and his phone has no more texts. Christ, he's so ashamed of himself. And disgust is lodged in his every thought; there's got to better than this! and what are you doing to yourself? But John's an addict, plain and simple, addicted to everything that Sherlock had.
And the easiest way to get over one addiction…? Start a new one.
I bet you could search this entire place and not find anything recreational.
John's never been so delighted to be wrong.
It's not like the pills he remembers finding in Harry's room and flushing down the toilet when she was getting clean, all different shapes and colours – pretty enough to be packaged up and sold as children's sweets. And he remembers Harry popping them into her mouth like Skittles.
A needle, a tourniquet, and his blood on the bathroom floor…they look a lot less pretty, and a lot more deadly. But John doesn't see it.
"What are you doing, John?" The delusion is…beautiful. Sherlock recreated perfectly behind his eyelids. Pale face serious – when is it ever not? – and eyes hardened.
"Waiting,"
"Waiting for what?"
And he laughs. Laughs that cruel, terrifying, mind-breaking laugh of hysteria that echoes around the porcelain tiles he's slumped against. "Seriously?" He finally asks when his hallucination is staring at him with curious eyes. And the expression breaks his heart, because he hasn't seen it in the longest time. "You don't know?"
"How can I?" He even sounds annoyed, even as a delusion always irritated by some gap in his knowledge. "I'm not real,"
The drugs peak.
And Sherlock is lost.
John awakes. Face down on the bathroom floor. And the first thing he notices – not the blood, not the pain, not the weakness clinging to every limb – is the drowning disappointment. Because reality is back, and he's alone. Because for the first time, in the longest time, he'd been happy. And reality is so much harder.
It's only when his arm is punctured so many times that he could join the dots to make a picture, that the come-down hits him hard and fast. Because the delusions make him furious; make him ecstatic; make him long for someone to be there with him. They conjure up images of dark-haired corpses that make tears escape his eyes, or they create illustrations of ruffled sheets and pounding hearts.
And with each come-down, so comes the disgust. The self-loathing, the hatred, the God just so fucking pointlessness of it all! And each time he hurls the wretched needle at the wall in the hopes that it'll shatter and leave him alone…
But then the craving sets in. And he needs to see Sherlock again. He'll take the pain, the helplessness, the anything, just to get that high.
And when Sherlock arrives again, face drawn in disappointed lines and eyes like quicksilver, John smiles.
He doesn't know where he is when he awakens again. It should scare him more than it does, but all he can bring himself to feel is that every encroaching disappointment that he's awake again. But he lifts his head, noticing he's now on his back and not his front, and looks around himself.
White.
That's all his brain seems to catalogue at first – although at some point he becomes aware of the bed he's lying on and the door opposite him. Just the strange blankness of the room. It's silent, empty, though if he strains his ears he can hear murmurs from somewhere beyond this place.
At first he wonders whether he's died. And, if so, he's been sorely cheated. But then the doctor in him, buried beneath the addict who's taken control, connects the links to create a map inside his head; Rehab.
He's seen places like this before, when he was in medical school. Visited Harry in on once. Never been trapped on the other side of the door, though.
The door opens, and he's not at all surprised to see Mycroft step through the door and observe him in that keen way Holmes men seem to possess. John doesn't blink.
"John Watson," He speaks after a few minutes into their childish staring contest. "What precisely were you trying to achieve?"
John doesn't answer, and Mycroft breathes his aggravation.
"You are the one person my brother truly cares about. Do not be selfish,"
And John is left alone again.
"I don't want to be saved. I don't want to be sober, or clean. I don't want to be living just for the point of living,"
"What do you want?"
"You,"
Mycroft visits him again. He's not sure how long he's spent in the maddening whiteness of the room – the days have blurred together. But the delusions have all but stopped now, save for the occasional nightmare that jolts him back to life.
"Mycroft," He nods, and Mycroft returns the gesture. But John can see something off in his keen eyes.
"Reichenbach Falls," And in those two words, meaningless so far to John, he can hear Mycroft's well-hidden worry. "My brother and Moriarty fell together over the edge three days ago,"
The air around John almost seems to shatter, and every jagged piece of the gas finds its way inside of him. Scratching down his throat, tearing at his vocal chords until all he can't manage to ask what he desperately needs to ask.
"My men have found no bodies, yet, John,"
It's the 'yet' that kills him.
He's dropped back at Baker Street the next morning in a sleek BMW. Mrs Hudson greets him as he enters, throwing her arms around him and offering to make him a nice cup of tea. She doesn't know what he now knows, and he won't tell her. Because saying the words makes it real, and he can't handle that.
The flat is still as cluttered as before, still as empty. But it's home. It's home, and it's not a terrifyingly white room.
Scoping out the flat, he easily finds his cigarettes and the bottles of abandoned vodka. He can't find the needle; he assumes Mycroft's men destroyed it.
Shame, really, he thinks as he tips everything into the skip, strikes a match, and watches the flames rise. It would have been nice to obliterate it all.
Maybe it's only when you hit the bottom, fall further than the bottom, that you can appreciate the devastating grief that you had before. John knows it makes no sense, he's still painfully longing for Sherlock. But it's better than being trapped in that cell, with only the silence for company.
So it's lying on his back on the sofa that Sherlock once sprawled himself across, staring numbly at the blurring motions of the T.V screen, that he rests his hands on his chest just to feel his heartbeat
Lub, lub. Lub, lub. Lub, lub.
It proves he's still alive.
And, if he can hang onto that, he can hope that Sherlock is, too.
"John,"
Hands in dirty washing up water, eyes lost in the storm outside, John freezes. Muscles lock down, breath catches, and his mind whirs. Theories, thoughts, facts, and hopes fire at a million miles per second. All arguing and conflicted, yet all still frantically agreeing and telling him not to turn around.
Because this can't be real.
But, because his body had always been traitorous to his mind, he turns regardless. He's always been unable to deny that voice anything.
It's Sherlock. It is. It can't be. It shouldn't be. How can it be? But it is. Oh, God, it is!
He stands before him, sodden like a book left in the rain, dark halo of hair matted against his pale, gaunt cheeks. Violent stains of purple are bruised beneath tired eyes, and yet they can still cut through John like diamonds.
John stumbles forward a step, and something flares in Sherlock's eyes as they watch each other, unblinkingly, with the kind of intensity that burns blissfully. "You're here," Is all he manages to say.
"Yes,"
He takes another step.
"You're alive,"
In any other situation, Sherlock would have rolled his eyes. In fact, he very nearly does, which brings a smile to John's lips. "Yes,"
In a frantic movement, they collide. Ungracefully, perhaps, but with such stuttering and raw emotion that it scratches at the very depths of them.
And John feels another heartbeat, strong, quick and undeniably there, against his own.